kerewin21

Wow I thought it was going to be an Onion article...

I do think it would be cool to have a handmade Onesie.

Any physician who offers someone a C-Section for no good medical reason is not a good doctor. If that happens you should go running! Although it is a low-risk procedure it's more high risk than a vaginal delivery. It's very tempting for the Ob's to do as many C-sections as possible. They're scheduled ahead of time often so they're less likely to be up all night or at the hospital all weekend waiting for a baby to be born, the Ob makes a heck of a lot more money for a C-section than a vaginal delivery, and they don't have to deal with that difficult moment when they ask themselves, is this baby going to be OK if I wait for him to come out vaginally or should I just go ahead and do a C-section (because I could get sued for a HECK of a lot of money if I make the wrong decision here, whereas if Mom gets a blood clot or infection or other complication from surgery it's not as big of a deal legal-wise).

As for CBR's list:

* Infection. The uterus or nearby pelvic organs such as the bladder or kidneys can become infected.

Uterus yes, but also a high risk of that with vaginal birth (though less). Bladder/kidney infection is not a likely complication of C-section.

* Increased blood loss. Blood loss on the average is about twice as much with cesarean birth as with vaginal birth.

This is true, but vaginal deliveries also lose a lot of blood, it's just part of the process. Women of childbearing age are usually young and healthy and have no trouble tolerating the loss of blood.

* Decreased bowel function. The bowel sometimes slows down for several days after surgery, resulting in distention, bloating and discomfort.

I agree with this one.

* Respiratory complications. General anesthesia can sometimes lead to pneumonia.

Very unlikely; general anesthesia is almost never used in a C-section. It would only be used if mom or baby was in imminent danger and couldn't wait for local anesthesia; in my hospital general anesthesia is used in about 0.05% of deliveries

* Longer hospital stay and recovery time. Three to five days in the hospital is the common length of stay, whereas it is less than one to three days for a vaginal birth.

Usually it's 1-2 days for vaginal, 2-3 days for C-section, so not a huge difference. I do agree that people who have C-sections have more pain post-partum (usually) and it takes them a little longer to get back on their feet.

* Reactions to anesthesia. The mother's health could be endangered by unexpected responses (such as blood pressure that drops quickly) to anesthesia or other medications during the surgery.

Again, very uncommon with the local anesthesia (epidural) used. Blood pressure does drop quickly but again, in a young healthy woman it's unlikely to do more than give a headache.

* Risk of additional surgeries. For example, hysterectomy, bladder repair, etc.

I agree with this, although you have to remember that some vaginal deliveries require hysterectomy or extensive repair of the vaginal wall/ rectum.

In cesarean birth, the possible risks to the baby include the following:

* Premature birth. If the due date was not accurately calculated, the baby could be delivered too early.

This makes no sense. The baby comes when the baby comes, unless it's at 41-42 weeks, at which point the labor would be induced anyway and you'd have the same problem that the dates could be miscalculated.

* Breathing problems. Babies born by cesarean are more likely to develop breathing problems such as transient tachypnea (abnormally fast breathing during the first few days after birth).

Transient tachypnea is very common in all newborns and is considered normal. It's true that C-section babies have more breathing problems, but you have to remember that some babies are born by C-section for a reason; they were having trouble inside. If they were having trouble inside they're also going to have trouble outside.

* Low Apgar scores. Babies born by cesarean sometimes have low Apgar scores. The low score can be an effect of the anesthesia and cesarean birth, or the baby may have been in distress to begin with. Or perhaps the baby was not stimulated as he or she would have been by vaginal birth.

True, but same as above, it's confounded by why the c-section was needed.

* Fetal injury. Although rare, the surgeon can accidentally nick the baby while making the uterine incision.

Definitely true and a legitimate concern. Of course, babies born vaginally can have their clavicles broken or the nerves to their arms damaged as well.

The end result of getting a green card is the same, wouldn't you rather have the whole process take place while they are here with you and processed at a local office where you can go and supply any additional information as needed?

I guess my point is that getting married, staying together, and getting a green card in about 6 months is not the same end result as waiting apart for years, dealing with unreasonable government officers who are not required to have any accountability to US citizens or even to Senators and Representatives, and eventually getting a visa, then having to apply for a green card, which is another several months long wait. I guess if all you count is the green card it's the same, but we're comparing months and years of uncertainty and unhappiness to a few months for a near-certain approval (honestly, how many people have you seen on this board whose AOS from visitor visa or student visa was not approved because some consular officer thought they didn't have a valid relationship?).

In addition, people on the VWP save a lot of money. They didn't have to pay all the visa fees.

I'm happy for the people who have that option that it was so easy for them, and that people who overstay can fall in love and magically become legal residents, but is that really right?

Edited to add: I know plenty of people (mostly friends of my husband) who get married to someone just to get their green card after they've overstayed a tourist visa. They live together amicably for a few years, then split up, and voila, the person who was an illegal immigrant becomes a resident and then eventually a citizen. I'm sure nobody here agrees with this, but the current system makes this kind of arrangement extremely easy to get away with.

why do people hate when someone else has an easier path then them? This is like hating someone because they won the lottery. So what if they come here on a B1/B2 and get married. The end result is the same, they just don't have to be apart during the process.

The end result *isn't* the same. It's a question of getting married in the US, applying for AOS, and waiting 3-6 months in general for the green card, vs having to go through a consulate that has completely opaque policies (eg Morocco or Egypt), can deny your petition without giving any more information about the denial other than vague explanations, does not answer the phone or respond to emails, can refuse your attempts to offer additional information, and can then send your application back to the US. Just sending the application back can take several months, then there is a month-long to years-long wait for the petition to be re-adjudicated in the US, during which time no information can be had about your case. How can you compare these two cases? Also the issue of past legal issues being circumvented doesn't seem to be the same end result; one person is denied while the other breezes into the US and gets married.

Just because it's *legal* doesn't make it right. And why are overstays forgiven if you marry an American? You can stay here for years illegally, not paying taxes, doing whatever you want as long as you don't get caught (though if you were caught you would go to immigration court and be deportable), but then you get married and declare yourself and your location to the government, and all of a sudden instead of being deported you're rewarded with a green card. I feel these policies should be revisited.

And so far I've not heard any logical rationale for why it shouldn't be permitted, other than that they're just uncomfortable with it being called it "marriage".

Actually, the argument I hear most often is that legalizing gay marriage puts society's stamp of approval on homosexuality. This will cause a mass public conversion to homosexuality.

Well that's certainly what happened in Massachusetts when they legalized gay marriage. I mean, honestly, society in MA has gone to #######. Everyone is now gay and thousands of families have fallen apart. That's why I moved to New York.

How soon are you moving? If it's in the next week or two, I would recommend putting in your NY address. I moved during both the K-1 and the AOS stage and it caused tons of problems; despite sending in a change of address form and calling several times to verify that the change of address was in, on both occasions the documents were sent to the old address. The first time they were not forwarded and returned to sender which was a major pain in the neck; the second time they *were* forwarded and it was no problem.

Some people have no trouble with the change of address, but it's worth waiting a few weeks to avoid the hassle IMO.

Hm..I never thought of it that way for foreign doctors. Well, that's kinda a two way street really. Why are the foreign doctors "forced" upon the rural towns? Is it because the government thinks rural areas are second best? And secondly, the foreign doctors are qualified to come here and work if they've done the school. They should get to pick their residancy (or at least give a selection of choices) just like everyone else. But I guess an advantage in wanting to get them used to being American doctors is it is easier to get them used to it in the slower paced rural towns than the faster paced cities. Because starting out as a doctor and gettng used to American life are two very big things in life-if done single, let alone done all at once.

The foreign doctors aren't being forced on rural towns. It's just that American medical graduates don't want to work in those rural areas. The only way to get anyone to work those places is by giving foreign medical graduates an incentive to work there for a few years. They fill those spots for a few years and then they get rewarded by getting an unrestricted visa to work wherever they want in the US.

"American Sexuality Magazine"

I guess we now know what Olivia does in her free time ...

1. How did he gain citizensihp if he was an illegal immigrant to begin with?

2. And to think I was thinking there were not enough docotors in the US. I called up a doctor a month ago to try to get an appt and she told me it would take a month for me to get an appt. Then when I said no way, she dared me to call someone else and there would be a 4 month wait. So now why is it that people are not getting into medical school then? (supposing you actually had good grades...no premed C/D/F students should pick my brain please:)

We don't want to pay to create more medical schools. In addition, our current system of training too few doctors, then filling our residency programs with graduates from foreign medical schools, serves us in 2 ways. First of all, we don't have to foot the bill for their training prior to residency; we let their countries pay to train them. Then we steal them away and put them in our residency programs. This is truly the clever part of our arrangement. Foreign medical grads are not getting into the elite, most competitive, most high-paying fields. Those spots are for Americans only. Instead, they're taking the spots none of the american grads want, mostly in family medicine, primary care, and psychiatry.

There is a doctor shortage, but it's mostly in the rural areas that nobody wants to go. Again, a way our current medical education system works for us: these foreign-trained doctors get to do their 3-5 years of medical training in the US, but if they want to stay, they have a problem; they can only get a visa to continue working here if they work for several years in a rural, underserved area. We get them used to living here and being american doctors, but they only get to have that privilege if they work somewhere no americans want to work.

Wow I actually agree with a lot of what Gary said....

However *insurance* for all is different from health *care* for all. For me the attraction of single payer coverage isn't the "socialism" aspect of it; it's the decreased waste of time, energy, and money. Every hospital has HUNDREDS of employees whose sole purpose is to figure out how to get paid by the hundreds of different insurance plans. Most of my patients have medicaid, so I know what prescriptions are covered, but every once in a while I have a patient with private insurance and I spend at least 30 to 45 minutes of every clinic day sorting out issues of making sure I filled out the right referral form and I picked the right generic version of the right drug. Isn't that a huge waste of time? Not to mention the time the pharmacies are spending calling *me* to tell me I have to pick a different drug, and so on. All of that wasted time adds to our national health care bill.

Not to mention the waste of time all the denials cause! In any given week while I'm working in the hospital, 25-30% of the patients who are there don't need the level of care provided by the hospital; however, they're stuck in limbo while the social workers and hospital administration are tryign to figure out a place to send them that will be covered by their insurance. If you forgot to fill out one line of a form on Thursday, forget about that Friday discharge; that patient is staying until Monday or Tuesday. If there were one uniform, easy, computerized process for all patients, if all the same medications were covered by all the same people, if the US government used its collective bargaining power to force pharmaceutical companies and suppliers of medical equipment to stop overcharging us, we could save some real money and actually cover everybody.

The US health care system is great for people who are well-off, have good insurance, and live in urban areas. No doubt about it. For the majority of Americans who don't fit that category, it's pretty difficult to access timely care, either because the wait is too long (I have a patient who has medicaid who has liver cancer and had to wait FOUR MONTHS to see a specialist because he doesn't have private insurance, and no begging and pleading on my part could make any difference in that), it's too expensive (one of my patients with no insurance had a likely brain tumor and decided to pay for his medicines instead of shelling out for an MRI... 2 months later, in a coma), or it's simply unavailable (no personal experience here, but women in rural areas who don't have insurance or are on Medicaid often cannot find an OB/GYN to take care of them).

Canada's system is far from perfect, as the article points out, but at least everyone is covered. Our 2-tier system is pretty harsh on those on the bottom.

I do have to agree with penalizing the Doctor; however, removing the license permanently is unfair. Not only that, they work nearly 80 hours/week. Mistakes happens all the time. With a Doctor of any speciality, their mistakes are less. Every humans mistakes happens. All of us drive. The speed limit is at 65 mph, yet people drive 80 or 75 mph. All of us have neglected these safety more often than we even think about. Hence, more people suffer more accidents compared to the operational room.

I absolutely think his license should be taken away. We have LOTS of procedures and safeguards in medicine to ensure that things like this don't happen and if the surgeon didn't avail himself of these safeguards then he acted very unprofessionally. Then trying to alter the record to cover it up???? Unbelievable.

Of course in the end it's on the surgeon, but that kind of mistake reflects a failure in that hospital's operating procedures. Everyone on the team is supposed to be paying attention to prevent these kinds of left/right errors; from the surgeon to the scrub nurse to the anesthesiologist. This represents a failure on so many levels it's unbelievable.

Prior to starting any surgery, everyone is supposed to take a time out and say, "we are removing mr. x's left lower lung." Everyone in that whole room is responsible to verify that the correct patient and correct location is being operated on.

We can't have any tolerance for this kind of failure. I hope not only the surgeon but the hospital that failed to have safeguards to prevent this get in trouble.

And the f***er had done the same thing in the past. The first time he got a DUI he should have thanked God that he didn't hurt anyone and then gotten himself straight instead of just keeping on doing the same thing. They should have taken his license and car away from him Driving is a privilege for people who are RESPONSIBLE not for sick f**s like this lunatic.

we finally agree!

The day had to come! Up next, hell freezes over

And the f***er had done the same thing in the past. The first time he got a DUI he should have thanked God that he didn't hurt anyone and then gotten himself straight instead of just keeping on doing the same thing. They should have taken his license and car away from him Driving is a privilege for people who are RESPONSIBLE not for sick f**s like this lunatic.

Thanks for your thoughts, Henia. I see some parallels between the situation in Algeria and that in Morocco, though the degree of vetting of French influence is different. Although all the streets are being renamed in arabic, french is still widely taught in school starting early, and many TV programs and most academic discourse is in French.

The article is available in French and Arabic on the website if any of your SOs want to read it.

ALGIERS — First, Abdel Malek Outas’s teachers taught him to write math equations in Arabic, and embrace Islam and the Arab world. Then they told him to write in Latin letters that are no longer branded unpatriotic, and open his mind to the West.

Malek is 19, and he is confused.

“When we were in middle school we studied only in Arabic,” he said. “When we went to high school, they changed the program, and a lot is in French. Sometimes, we don’t even understand what we are writing.”

The confusion has bled off the pages of his math book and deep into his life. One moment, he is rapping; another, he recounts how he flirted with terrorism, agreeing two years ago to go with a recruiter to kill apostates in the name of jihad.

At a time of religious revival across the Muslim world, Algeria’s youth are in play. The focus of this contest is the schools, where for decades Islamists controlled what children learned, and how they learned, officials and education experts here said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/world/af...amp;oref=slogin

I used to spend a lot of time alone at the library as a kid if I had no school and mom had to work. I read lots of books.

The problem now is that all the kids do at the library is go on the internet to play games and chat online. I can't stand spending time at my local library because of that. I go in and get the books I want as fast as I can and then leave. Fortunately there's another library not too far away where the kids have their own floor and the rest of the library is peaceful.

When I go to the library, it's usually adults I see on the PC's there.

I guess it depends where you live. In my neighborhood there are TONS of kids and I think most of them don't have computers/internet at home. When I go to the library in my parents' town (well-off suburb) the only people on the computers are adults.

I used to spend a lot of time alone at the library as a kid if I had no school and mom had to work. I read lots of books.

The problem now is that all the kids do at the library is go on the internet to play games and chat online. I can't stand spending time at my local library because of that. I go in and get the books I want as fast as I can and then leave. Fortunately there's another library not too far away where the kids have their own floor and the rest of the library is peaceful.

Ryan, thank you for visiting and I'm glad that knowing how treasured Dawn was here in our online community brought some comfort to your family. She will never be forgotten by her virtual family.

Please do keep us posted on the court case, I am very interested in seeing this person spend the rest of his life in jail for what he did.

Sharon

yep and its the same way all over too. Too easy to get handouts like section 8 housing and food stamps and welfare to worry about making anything better for yourself or other people.

I have on more than one occasion been in line behind someone at the grocery store who is cashing WIC checks and food stamps (programs of which I'm a strong supporter) and then seen that person driving out of the parking lot in a VERY expensive car (once an Escalade, twice a BMW SUV), and of course talking on a cell phone that costs more than I can afford. I believe in these programs but there is so much fraud and abuse

Charlotte has a lot of crime. most of it is stupid Latino on Latino crime.. a bunch of dumbarses who get drunk and pick fights with the wrong people, then they drive drunk home and get caught by the cops, and they start shooting and sh!t.. I'm glad though, evolution does its job there.. eliminating the genes from idiot people who shouldn't procreate

Would that they were the only ones "eliminated" that way.

I have to agree with Scott. Our dear Dawn from MENA was just killed by one of those drunk idiots (who had been arrested for the same thing before).

I do hate to say it, but where there is poverty there is an inordinate amount of crime, and when the poverty moves it brings the crime with it.

They should be required by law to at least provide a bottle of water. One can get pretty parched on a 2-3 hour flight. A bottle of water can be had for 15-20 cents retail or much less if they purchase hundreds of cases.

That's what I was thinking too. Or it should depend on the length of the flight.

It totally drives me nuts that you can't bring water through security with you and then the places inside the airport charge $2 for a bottle of water. It's totally a racket. I've tried bringing my own empty bottle and filling it at the water fountain but for some reason airport water fountain water tastes terrible.

So the ban only kicks in if they resist?

resistance is futile.

lol

we are borg... we will assimilate you.

I just started crying at work reading everyone's entries on Dawn's guest book. I pray she can see us from where she is now and that she is happy and at peace.

I've been looking at all the other threads at VJ, but they all seem unimportant when I think about how fleeting life can be and how someone so precious could be taken away from us in an instant.

Can we put a moratorium on GaryC posting anti global warming articles? I think we get it by now. GaryC doesn't believe in global warming. I think we've also established that the vast majority of the scientific community *does* believe in global warming. We're just wasting electrons with this constant back and forth.

Hmm.... I can't post global warming stories, I can't post Obama stories. I can see that everything is fine as long as I don't ruffle the feathers of those that disagree with me. Maybe you would be happy with a forum filled with kitten threads?Censorship is alive and well.

I have no problem with you posting these stories, but could you limit it to maybe once a week? Pick out one really good one each week and post it. I'm not trying to censor anything, I'm just pointing out that this discussion has been had over and over again and the point that you think global warming is a load of ####### has been made over and over again. The point that others, myself included, don't think it's a load of ####### has also been made over and over again.